Book Review: Across and Beyond – Essays on Travel

Priyanka Tripathi reviews the essay collection edited by Nishi Pulugurtha, Across and Beyond (Published by Avenel Press, 2020) telling us how it appears to be a documenting the narratives of anguished people who are in their desperate bid for air and freedom.

“Travel is about negotiating with the known and the unknown, the familiar and the unfamiliar.”

Nishi Pulugurtha

Nishi Pulugurtha’s edited collection comprises sixteen essays that are broadly mustered into four sections: Music, Textiles, Food and Travel; The Solo Woman Traveller; Literature and Travel; History and Travel. Set within and beyond the geographical boundaries of India these chapters construct a narrative based on the insights of a silent but observant traveler. One of the added pleasures of reading this book is the inclusions of photographs in a few chapters that make the reader dive into the place in narration and explore it a little more beyond its verbal expression. The experiences of these travelers are layered with a strong and diverse body of research and personal experience that is infused with a complex rhetorical and colored palette consisting of food, music, travel, clothes and most importantly the ebb and flow of our most incredible journey called LIFE.